


all the world's a stage

by bubblewrapstargirl



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe, Capitol darlings Peeta and Katniss, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, No hunger games, POV Alternating, Peeta Mellark is bi don't @ me, Rating May Change, Rich Peeta Mellark, The Hunger Games are a variety talent show instead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 04:06:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16946685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblewrapstargirl/pseuds/bubblewrapstargirl
Summary: Peeta Mellark is a child actor whose star is slipping from the sky. Desperate to get cast in a lead role, he invests in a low-budget film, and needs an unknown lady for the love interest. So she generates some attention as a newbie, but the real star power is all him. Or, how Katniss Everdeen accidentally became a Capitol darling.~~~Katniss and Peeta become famous as 'Everlark', repeated lovers on screen in a series of unrelated movies. Their films aren't widely acclaimed, but their chemistry is undeniable. But the money they make from appearing together on talk shows or by hosting events is even better. The buzz generated about their potential romance gets them so much attention, and Katniss really needs the money to send Prim to medical school. How hard can it be, really, to pretend to date someone?ON HIATUS WHILE I WORK ON MY NOVEL





	all the world's a stage

I never wanted to be an actress. I never wanted to be a baker, either, but it was a damn sight more realistic than dreams of starring in Capitol-endorsed pay-to-view films about the magic of true love, or how one citizen can save the Capitol from corruption, by being good at their job and not overstepping their boundaries.

But I got a position in Mellark’s Bakery - a fashionable and famous chain of bakeries - to help support my sister through her education. She showed promise at a young age of being a healer, like my mother, but she quickly absorbed everything my mother could teach. Prim was never going to get anywhere further in District 12, where the closest thing we have to a college is the Mayor’s internship, where polite children learn to be clerks for the District Hall.

So I dropped out of my final two (optional) years at school, and began waking before sunrise for my shifts in the bakery. I used my wages to save up for her tuition in District 6. But it was slow going, and I wasn't exactly raking it in. There's only so much cash to go around, in 12. It was there in Mellark's, I learnt from the other employees, how great Peeta Mellark was doing.

Peeta Mellark is the only celebrity that District 12 has produced (along with Haymitch Abernathy, who is decidedly less appealing in front of a camera). Every year, the Capitol holds a 'reality talent show', purely for District children, called the Great Games. Two children from every District are chosen to compete in a series of twelve rounds, showcasing their ingenuity and bravery, and the winner is given a cash prize and a house. The most memorable competitors get film and programme deals afterwards, or endorsements to advertise perfume and designer clothing. When we were still in school together, Peeta won that competition. He was nine years old, and he’s been an actor ever since. He starred as the quirky kid in family films about dramatic parents, and the science whiz kid in a school show. He’s been in so many Capitol films I quickly lost count, even though Prim watches them religiously. She can never get her head around the fact Peeta went to our school, and once walked the same dusty roads we do.

Recently though, she’s been complaining that Peeta hasn’t been in anything. Apparently he’s taken to hosting instead, and is now the secondary commentator of the Great Games. Along with Ceasar Flickerman, who has been the lead host of the annual show, since before I was alive. But the Games are only on once a year; in the summer. Apparently Peeta hosts children’s programmes, which Prim is too old for, otherwise. Though I smile in sympathy at her complaints, I can’t help but sigh with relief. Glad at least that Peeta doesn’t ‘host’, the same way Finnick Odair does.

Before Peeta, Finnick was the youngest winner of the Great Games, at age fourteen. And he’s been a Capitol darling since then. But where Peeta was cherubic and adorable, with his halo of golden curls, Finnick was already handsome, even then. Some guys mature much faster, when they do manual work. At fourteen, Finnick's chest was clearly defined, like a man’s. The advertisements Finnick did after winning the Games were barely decent; all slicked hair and shirtless in water.

It didn’t take long before his flirty smiles were directed at the right people, and Finnick became an actor on, and the host for, adult entertainment channels. Sometimes when I wake, and don’t want to dress in silence, I turn on the projector, and accidentally come across him trying to sell me sex toys, in the breaks between adult-only films, before I can switch over to the news channel.

Finnick is one of those attention-seekers, who is confident with every aspect of their personal life on display. He’s a serial monogamist, as I call it, bouncing from one relationship to the next. He even dated Peeta for a while. Which was very popular with Capitol audiences apparently, but it didn’t last. From what Prim told me, they got back together more than once. But she says Finnick was ‘too restless’ to settle down permanently.

Prim enjoys the celebrity gossip programmes, and I’m not heartless enough to tell her what garbage I think it all is. Why does it matter who is dating who? And why does anyone have an interest in watching people go about the business that should be kept behind closed doors, preferably between married couples? I will never understand it, though I admit Peeta and Finnick did make a visually stunning couple.

At work, I am frequently reminded of Peeta, when the other employees gush about how amazing it is that he and his family used to live _above this very bakery_. After Peeta got famous and started getting rich, he helped his parents turn the best, most delicious and delicate bread, pastries and cakes, into something everyone in Panem can enjoy. There are Mellark bakeries in every District and the Capitol, and Peeta is in all of the advertisements for them. Rumour has it, Peeta bought out his parents, and owns the chain outright. That I doubt, however, having personally interacted with Mrs Mellark before. She was a shrew and a miser, and I highly doubt Peeta could take the bakery business from her, unless he prized it from her cold, lifeless, clawed hands.

But there’s no mistaking who’s going to inherit the fortune it has made. Peeta was their only investor.

When I began work that fateful week, I had no inkling my life would be shaken to its roots. It was just another day for me, until Millie came running in, just before the midday rush on her day off, to gush and screech. After getting her into the backroom, we finally got her to speak sense.

“Peeta is coming here!” she wheezed, “My sister, who works in the Mayor’s office, got the email! She told me, she had to tell the Mayor, so he could organise a meeting in the town’s square, and after- after- he’s coming here, to the bakery!”

She was breathless and beside herself, but my stomach felt like I had swallowed a liquid stone, and it had solidified in there. I hadn’t seen Peeta since we were children, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t wanted to.

The winter before the summer when Peeta won the Great Games, he did something for me that I will never forget. After my father died, my mother shut down. She was a complete wreck, and she couldn’t get out of bed, let alone take care of us. She wouldn’t go back to work, or pay the bills. Prim and I were starving, and likely to get kicked out of our home. Hazelle Hawthorne spoke to the bank for us, and helped us pay the rent at least, from my parent’s savings, but we couldn’t take food from her. She had so many mouths at home to feed, and only one small income coming in, because she refused to let Gale drop out of school to work.

I’ve always been slight and slim, and soon enough, you could count my ribs. I tried selling our things. Everything of value I took to the Hob, our marketplace, but it wasn’t enough. Not many of our things were worth any money, not even Prim’s pretty baby dresses. We were going to starve. One night, desperate and cold, shivering in a thin cardigan because I’d sold my only good coat, I collapsed in the dirt, and curled up in a heap. Miserable, alone, and not likely to live out the winter.

Not until Peeta gave me hope, in the form of two loaves of bread he had burnt, tossed to me instead of the pigs out back. His mother beat him viciously for it. But that day he had saved my life, and the lives of my sister and mother, by giving me hope. The very next day I saw a dandelion, and realised spring was closer than I thought, and I still had my father’s hunting bow. It's illegal to poach from the woods - it’s a Wildlife Preserve, and the plants and animals are protected species - but if I was careful, I could take just enough for my family to survive. I set out that afternoon, and even now, long after my mother got another job, I still occasionally hunt. Just to prove to myself that I can, and that if I have to, I will save us.

But I never thanked Peeta for the bread. All spring, I was obsessed with hunting, too busy to track him down, and perhaps too embarrassed to approach him at school. Then he left for the Capitol, and I never saw him again, though I knew he returned to District 12 occasionally to visit his family, before they joined him there.

Now, I finally had my chance, but would I be brave enough to take it?

*

When Peeta came into the bakery, I was kneading dough. The morning loaves are made the night before, to rise overnight and be ready in the morning. But in late morning, we make a second batch, for those who also work early, but like to have bread with their supper. We eat a lot of soup and stews in District 12, and fresh bread is always better as an accompaniment. Crunchy yet soft.

I heard the blather of the film crew before I saw them.

“Oh, but this is so _quaint,_ Peeta,” came a shrill voice I recognised as Effie Trinket, a famous host in her own right.

I frowned, trying to recall if I had seen them present anything together before. Effie Trinket usually did documentaries about famous people, or their houses. Or their pets. Then it all made sense to me. There is this stock footage of Peeta as a child, trotted out regularly, of him pounding bread and talking about talents he had, which might help him in the Games. It was long overdue an update. A revisit of his humble beginnings, was exactly the kind of thing Effie Trinket would get excited about.

I dusted off my hands, fumbling with my apron, as I blew a lock of hair away from my face. I kept it in one braid most days, but wisps did escape and irritate me, on occasion. I stepped forward with the other eager employees, craning for a glimpse of Peeta's blonde curls. But I was too far back, and it wasn’t until they parted to let him into the room, that I saw him. He seemed smaller in real life, but the bright smile and buoyant curls were exactly the same. His lips were shiny and soft, not chapped like mine, and his hair shimmered with tiny gold flecks, which must be from some special sort of hairspray. His clothes were form-fitting and pristine white, despite him presumably having walked here from the train station.

I suddenly felt very dowdy in my misshapen, over-large t-shirt and plain trousers, with a dirty apron on top. At least I wasn’t the only one. But I noticed the other bakers looked suspiciously neat, their hair combed smoother, with extra make-up on girls who woke too early to usually be bothered. I flushed then, realising far too late I should have made an effort to impress, in my one chance to catch Peeta’s attention.

But it turned out I didn’t have to do anything at all. Peeta was smiling at the assembled bakers, shaking hands and saying how nice it was to meet us all, when he turned and caught my eye. I bit my lip, sure he would not remember me. Yet his wide, crowd-pleasing smile dropped, and it was only then that I realised how fake it was. Without the glamorous smile, with a look of shock that was rapidly turning into genuine pleasure, Peeta called out; “Katniss?” and everyone turned to look at me.

The other employees were all far older than us. Millie was the youngest after me, but even she was in her mid-twenties. No one was old, exactly, except for Ben, who had worked here with Peeta’s parents and was now the manager. So none of them except Ben could remember Peeta, because they hadn’t known him as a child like I had. They had all been working in other places, by the time Peeta was famous enough to be noticed by those outside his school friends, neighbours and family. Not that I counted myself his friend. I was just the lucky recipient of his kindness, as a child.

Now, he was calling my name as though he was my long-lost brother.

“Katniss, it is you, isn’t it?” Peeta moved toward me, thrilled.

There was nothing I could do but nod, my throat was closed with nervous swelling. I swallowed, hoping the thick feeling would go away.

“H-hello, Peeta,” I managed to choke out, and he frowned, the crowd parting reluctantly for him as he advanced. Everyone who worked at Mellark’s was here, for the chance to meet him.

“Are you alright?” He asked, still frowning, as I dithered like an idiot and flushed because of it.

I forced myself to clear my throat, and pasted on a smile. “Yes,” I managed to say, “Thank you, I- I’m fine. It’s lovely to see you.”

Basic words of kindness, but I felt like I had won the Games myself, such was my elation at getting the damn words out without humiliating myself further. I couldn’t believe that he remembered me, after all these years, and all the people he must have encountered.

“How long have you worked here?” He asked, stepping closer to me. He smelt like strawberries, and up close, I could see freckles on his nose, not quite concealed by his bronzing make-up. His eyes were a startlingly rich colour of blue.

I said how long, and saw him count and realise in his mind, that I had dropped out of school. The last two years were not compulsory, but if you wanted further education, or any hope of working in another District, you needed them. You couldn’t get a train pass without it, not unless you had a personal invitation to the Capitol. People like Peeta got an invitation to the Games, then Capitol citizenship, if they were memorable enough to be asked to stay.

Peeta’s forehead twitched, as though he wanted to ask more questions, but instead the crinkles smoothed and he grinned at me again.

“It’s so wonderful to see you Katniss, and you look like you’re doing great!” his words were sunny, but they actually sounded sincere. “We’ll have to catch up properly, before I go.”

That was a large part of Peeta’s charm. He made anything sound believable, and people lapped it up. But he was an actor, and actors act. He wasn’t thrilled to see me, he was just being kind. I knew he didn’t mean that last part- we weren’t old friends, so we didn’t have anything to ‘catch up’ about. He was careful then, to say hello to the other employees he had enchanted with his smile. I stepped out of the way. Hopefully I could catch him, before they were through filming whatever footage of Peeta’s _quaint_ beginnings they needed, and they hurried back to civilisation. Then I could do what I needed to do; thank him, and be done with it.

It was a chapter of my life I should have closed long ago.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written a first person narrative in my life damn you Hunger Games.
> 
> Please comment with your thoughts! Fan communities need to work together to provide support and encouragement, cause all we have is each other :)


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